It's a blazing hot afternoon, but I'm sitting in my PGP greenhouse room typing away at a computer that radiates heat in waves. On my desk sits a mug of tea that I brewed to keep me awake, the steam from the hot water I just poured in dissipating in the sweltering air. I feel like a bundle of contradictions, and it's not nice to contradict oneself in this heat. The fan brings me scant relief, even though I have turned it up several notches. I note that the time is 5+pm; another hour and this baking torment will subside into cool evening.

We spent yesterday playing risk in KN's room, my first attempt at the game that the bunch of them recently picked up. I was the noob of the game, and fortuitously managed to take Australia, where I planned to watch the rest of the world at war from a safe and defensible position. A couple of inflammatory comments, a misdirected spirit of adventure and a wrongly fortified position allowed KY to sweep into my base, ousting my troops before his relentless onslaught. Before the sun went down, he had occupied Australia, and I was the homeless spirit, drifting through the forests of India and China. But my brother came to my rescue, and for an absolutely gratuitous motive, waged war against poor unsuspecting KY until his forces were sufficiently weakened, allowing me to retake what I had lost through imprudence. And so I remained in the game a little longer.

I stubbed my left big toe some three weeks ago and broke the nail. The flesh has healed now, but the broken nail has yet to grow out. Rather than cut it off and leave the nail bed exposed, I have chosen to stick a succession of plasters (band-aid) over the hanging nail, extending the sticky ends to below the toe to fasten it firmly into place.

I still need to walk on that toe though; I am mobile enough, even though that toe was sore for the first fews days. With my foot applying pressure and friction on the plaster, it not only shifted and stretched, but liberally rubbed its adhesive off on the various pairs of sandals that I wore, to which adhered all the dust from the ground that I walked upon.

Now my left sandals come with a sticky, dirt-encrusted big-toe-mark which however is fortunately obscured when I have the sandals on. The pink pair are my daily wear/ bathroom pair, and comes with the most pronounced toe print. The black pair has also seen much use, but the print does not show as much, and the beige one has but a smudge.


I think that I should be able to remove the marks with a bit of sticky tape, when I finally ditch the plaster for good. The hanging toenail seems to take forever to grow out though.